by Bill Walsh
He has a brown paper bag with apples and pears and another bag with groceries, to last at least a week, he says. It looks a small bag to last six of us a week. He puts one apple and one pear in a wooden bowl and leaves it on the table and warns us not to touch. He leaves the rest in the press under the sink and warns us, don’t touch that either. He leaves a box of matches on the cooker and tells Pippa and me to help Mona with the breakfast. He brings Sheamie and Danny to fetch water. I stand at the door watching the three of them hurry across the field and I smile because I know three people going out in the rain for two buckets of water will torment Sheamie to distraction. Especially with his willy the way it is.
Mona lights the gas ring and soon the frying pan sizzles with bacon, sausages, eggs, tomatoes, black puddings and the luscious smell makes my stomach warble.
I hear my father outside the door telling Danny and Sheamie to wash before they come in. He comes in himself and stands behind us drying his hair with a towel. I can smell the rain from his clothes and hear the towel on his hair like sandpaper on wood. He sticks his head in over our shoulders and tells Mona, they’re well cooked. Don’t you know when something’s burning?
Mona doesn’t answer.
Well, do you or don’t you?
Pippa goes to straighten the knives and forks on the table as if there’s nothing the matter here at all. Mona and Matilda have everything under control and I’ll just keep out of the way.
Mona keeps her eyes on the pan. If she says yes, she’ll get a clatter for not turning off the gas. If she says no, she’ll get a clatter for being stupid not knowing when something’s burning. I glance over my shoulder. He’s waiting with the towel over his shoulder for an answer. I take a chance and tell him it’s not Mona’s fault. None of us ever cooked before.
Have you a nose? Can’t you smell? Wash yeer hands and don’t talk stupid. Sit down and read your schoolbooks.
He pulls the frying pan from the gas ring and empties it in the bin and cooks breakfast himself and, when he’s ready, we carry our plates to the table.
The food is warm and delicious. Rashers, sausages, eggs, mushrooms. When I’m finished I’m still so hungry I could eat the same again. My father is sitting across from me dipping his toast in his egg and there’s one crispy sausage left on the plate between us. I can see him eyeing it but I never wanted anything as much as I want that sausage. I can taste it, cut in little pieces, smothered in salt. It’ll still be warm.
Do I act as if, Oh, there’s a sausage left, I might as well have it if nobody else does? What could he do if I’m quick enough?
I leave my hand on the table. I’ll just let it slide across without looking at the sausage. Sheamie is at the far end of the table still chewing. He’s after the sausage too, but he’d have to stand up to reach it and there’s still a sausage on his plate. Danny is beside my father, chewing on a rasher. Danny could reach it easily but he’d have to reach across my father. I don’t think he’ll chance it and even if he does he’s only ten and I can tell him to put it back. My fingers are close, touching the warm plate. Pippa is on one side of me, wrapped in a blanket, her chest still wheezy from the dust and her cheeks so pale the last thing on her mind is a sausage. Mona is on the other side of me drinking tea from the cracked white cup. Mona would never chance it. She knows she barely got away with burning the breakfast in the first place, but, even if she does, my hand is closer.
My father goes to the sink to pour tea and that surely means he doesn’t want it, so I grab it and put it in my mouth, whole. Jesus Christ, it’s scorching. I want to take it out but my father is back. He sits down opposite me again and glares at the empty plate. The sausage is stuck at the back of my throat. If I try to swallow it, he’ll notice. He glares over at me with those big yellow eyes then down at the plate. The caravan is silent. Pippa sits back further on the bunk and wraps herself deeper in the blanket like a tortoise hiding in its shell. Danny stops chewing and sits there with his round brown eyes straight ahead and the rasher rind jutting out between his lips. Sheamie has his fork stuck in his last sausage. He brings it to his lips, then stops and looks at my father. What’s he doing? If he offers it to him, it’s as good as telling him someone took that sausage. Eat the fucking sausage. I can tell by the way my father is looking around he’s not absolutely certain there was a sausage. Eat the sausage, Sheamie, I’m choking over here.
My father starts to roll a cigarette with one hand. He licks the paper and puts the cigarette between his lips. He roots in his pocket for a match and strikes the match off the tabletop and lights the cigarette. My brothers and sisters are where they were and the sausage is still stuck at the back of my throat. Mona goes to the cooker for more tea. Danny lets his knife fall on the floor and when my father looks down I cover my mouth with my hand and pretend to cough but the yellow eyes are too quick and he’s glaring at me again. Mona is by the sink with the teapot in her hand asking, Would you like more tea, Daddy?
What?
Tea, would you like some more?
Sheamie eats his sausage. My father looks over at Mona and shakes his head, no, and that gives me time to swallow, only the sausage goes down sideways and there are tears in my eyes when my father winks over at me.
Did you enjoy that, Matilda?
Enjoy what?
Your fry, did you enjoy it?
Oh, that. Yeah, it was lovely. Thanks, Daddy.
Can’t beat a good fry in the morning.
He drinks his tea from the cracked mug and tells us to clear the table, wash up, and get the schoolbooks out.
But it’s our holidays, Daddy. Can’t we go outside?
It’s raining. We’re staying put.
Every day it rains and every day the spelling gets tougher. My father wants them tougher. By the end of the week, Mona is asking words Reverend Mother wouldn’t know, but at least we’ll be leaving for Donegal soon to meet up with Aunt Peg and Uncle James and my father won’t be as bad when they’re around.
Some days I see the people in the other caravans. They have children like us. They leave in the mornings and come back in the evenings. They talk to each other and even in the rain visit each other’s caravan. At night I hear them singing and laughing and I wonder, would they be singing and laughing if they knew what was happening on our side of the field? It’s nearly over though. My father got petrol today so we’ll be leaving in the morning.
We’re woken in the night by a knock on the door. My father jumps down from his bunk above the back window. He pulls on his tracksuit bottom and goes outside. Sheamie, Pippa, Danny and me kneel up in the bunk to look out the window. Mona stays in our father’s bunk and I’m too embarrassed to look at her. If I don’t look at her, I can make myself believe she’s not really there. I know they’re doing things up there. I hear my father moaning the way my uncles do, but I don’t understand why Mona moans as well.
Everything outside the caravan is dark and I can’t see who he’s talking to. I just hear voices until the moon comes out again, and it’s as if my father is standing in candlelight. Now I can make out the two other men. They have long hair and beards like my father. The three of them are laughing and sharing a cigarette. My father comes in and pulls on a jumper and tells us to stay in bed. He’ll be back later.
We watch them through the window and in a few steps they vanish in the darkness.
We get up, light the candle on the table and send our own shadows dancing around the walls. We fill cups of water and Mona lights the gas ring to fry sausages and the rest of us laugh when Sheamie tells Mona she can burn them if she wants. Pippa won’t eat anything but Sheamie’s so hungry he’d eat the handle off the pan. We stand around the cooker and there’s a lovely blue glow from the gas ring. We open the door to let the smoke out and the night air in. The rain has stopped and there’s a sweet smell from the grass. I sit on the step beside Danny and look up at the moon. The five of us are having such a time of it I could live in a caravan with my brothers and sisters for ever if we had enough sausages.
Oh shit. We’ve eaten all the sausages.
Pippa wraps herself in her blanket and scurries back to bed. It’s nothing to do with her. Danny says we should burn down the caravan. There was a fire and we were lucky to get out with our lives. We’ll blacken our faces. Daddy won’t know the difference.
We don’t take any notice because Danny is only ten so it’s bound to be a bad idea.
Sheamie says the trouble with Danny is he don’t know there’s a hole in his arse.
Pippa sits up in her bunk lifting her eyebrows at me as if to say, Well, don’t you learn something new every day?
Mona scrubs the frying pan clean in the sink and says we’ll be kilt for sure. Danny is still sitting beside me on the step. He says our father is mad but he’s hardly mad enough to count sausages. Maybe he won’t notice.
Sheamie says he’d count the hairs on your head if there was money in it. Sheamie leans against the cooker gripping his lip between his thumb and finger telling everyone to keep calm. Get everything cleaned and packed away. Keep calm. For Jesus Christ’s sake, everyone keep calm.
15
I’m putting the last mug in the press when he walks in from the dark in his bare feet and starts sniffing the air.
What are you doing out of bed?
I was thirsty, Daddy.
Did you need to get dressed to get water?
I, ah, I thought I might have to walk across the field, Daddy.
He nods. What’s that smell?
What smell? I don’t get a smell. Maybe it’s the candle. I had to light the candle to see what I was doing.
Why isn’t it lit, then?
It blew out when you opened the door.
My hands tremble so much I can’t get the cup back in the press. My father looks down to the bunks to where the others are pretending to be asleep. He takes the cup from my hand and puts the cup in the press and closes the door. He tells the others to get up and get dressed. I know yee’re awake. You don’t fool me.
We follow my father out to the darkness where he takes a torch from the boot of the car. We follow its narrow yellow beam through damp fields covered in rocks and hedges and head towards the orange glow in the distance. We creep along a narrow path on the cliff edge where the wind is so strong we have to dig our chins into our chests just to breathe. The Atlantic Ocean howls below us and hurls great chunks of itself four storeys into the air but by the time it reaches us it’s little more than a cold mist on our hair. At the end of the narrow path we go through a gap in the hedge. I can feel the briars snapping back on my shins after Sheamie has gone through. We’re in a field that slopes upward. We walk along by the hedge till we come to a place with tents and caravans circled around a great blazing fire. The sparks crackle and leap into the darkness and all around us glows orange and black, black and orange.
There are two men sitting against a caravan wheel. Both of them are thin and their cheeks have collapsed. My father sits between them and they laugh and talk and pass a cigarette from one to the other. Pippa nudges me and nods to the man sitting cross-legged by the fire. He has huge round eyes and stares into the flames. Jesus, is he naked? He can’t be. He is though, except for the purple beads around his neck. I’m happy the guitar is on his lap.
A pretty girl with lovely white hair tied in pigtails is sitting on a blanket near the fire. She waves to us and calls out in a sweet voice, Don’t stand back. Come in from the cold.
She’s wearing a long yellow dress covered in flowers and looks about eighteen. She says her name is Sonya. Sonya has a friendly face and a smile warm like the fire, so we sit with her on the blanket. The whole camp seems cosy and warm and friendly, the way a camp should feel.
Are you on holiday too? Mona asks Sonya.
Life is a holiday, says Sonya.
Mona looks at me but I look away. You’d know Sonya was never in the Holy Shepherd after saying a stupid thing like that.
Your Daddy tells me you’re only here for a few days. A pity really, we’re having a wedding here next month, you’d have had a wonderful time.
She was talking to the five of us but she was looking over at my father warming his hands at the fire.
My father comes across and sits cross-legged between Sonya and me. His eyes are like moons in his skull and he’s smiling at the five of us like we done something right for once. He tells Sonya we’re his children and he’s proud of us. It breaks his heart to see us in that convent. He puts his huge arm around me and tells me he loves me, loves all of us. We’re the most important things in the world, after Jesus. He’s doing well in London. He’s in business with Uncle James, buying old houses, fixing them up and letting them out. He’s bought a big house in London for himself and he’s taking us out of the convent soon. He’ll have a house for each of us for when we’re older. We’ll be a family again.
Sonya says we’re lovely children. We have lovely manners and we’re blessed with our Daddy’s good looks. She blushes at Daddy and turns her eyes away. Her cheeks are flushed and any fool can see there’s more than the fire making Sonya hot.
After a while, Sonya and my father leave us alone. I see them holding hands as they pass on the other side of the fire, then vanish into the night. Mona has a hurt look. Part of me wants to reach over and hold her hand, but I can’t. It’s like saying, I know. Do you want to talk? There are some things you just don’t want to talk about because there’s nothing you can do. Mona turns her face away, only for a moment, then turns back to Danny. Danny is excited our father is taking us out of the convent and I feel sorry for him because when I was ten I’d be delighted to hear that too. We try to explain we’re in the convent until we’re sixteen and can’t be taken out unless the nuns and the government agree. He sits quietly by the fire trying to figure it out only you can’t figure anything out when you’re ten and you’ve never seen anything in your life except walls and nuns. I see the tears on his cheeks but I’m proud of him because, even though he doesn’t understand, he believes us, and somehow that makes us all a little bit closer.
We sit by the fire until the flames flicker and die and the ashes blacken and there’s a cold dawn breaking over the island. The sky is pink around the edges and every shade of grey overhead. The air feels thin and you can hear the birds chirping from the treetops to warm themselves. Sheamie stands up and stretches. He yawns. He has something to do and he’ll follow us back.
Mona, Pippa, Danny and me trudge in a single file back through the damp fields where the cattle are stirring from the hedges and the lambs are bawling for their ma.
In the caravan, last night’s candle is melted to its saucer. We wrap ourselves in blankets and make tea and toast and sit around the table. We’re tired and want to sleep but worried over sausages and why Sheamie isn’t back. Pippa says, It don’t take an hour to piss. Maybe he’s after cuttin’ his willy off again.
We laugh. Even Mona laughs, till she says she doesn’t think we’ll be leaving this place. Not with the way our father was so friendly with the hippies and that Sonya. No way are we going on to Donegal. Forget Donegal.
Pippa glances over at me from inside her blanket. I don’t know what to say. I can only worry about one thing at a time.
We wrap our fingers around our warm mugs and sip our hot tea till Sheamie bursts through the door. He’s out of breath and littered in twigs and bits of green things.
The father is behind me. I had to cut through hedges to get ahead of him. Look at what I have under me coat. I robbed them offa the hippies.
You can hear the relief. Pippa is so relieved she farts and blushes but nobody laughs. Pippa says to Sheamie, Put them sausages in the press before he comes in. Hurry!
Don’t say thanks, whatever you do.
Put them in the press and I’ll kiss your arse.
I’d rather keep ’em under me coat.
Would the two of you ever shut the fuck up, says Mona.
My father comes in just as Sheamie is putting the sausages away. He warns Sheamie
not to touch anything in there, he’ll cook it himself. My father’s eyes look tired but the rest of him looks fresh, like he’s slept all night in a big feather bed, and he smells like he’s just got out of the shower. He opens the door and sends us out to wash. We stink.
It’s raining again. There’s no point going across the field for water when there’s a deluge from the caravan roof. We strip to our underwear and stick our heads under the gushing water and scrub ourselves with the bar of soap. The water is warm and it’s like standing under a drainpipe. We’re washed in a minute. My father follows out and asks where’s the bucket we used and we say we didn’t need a bucket. We washed in the rain. He leans against the door and takes a puff of the cigarette. He says if we like rain so much we can wash ourselves in it properly.
We are washed properly.
I’ll decide that. Run around that field until I tell you to stop.
The five of us look at each other then back at him drawing on the cigarette.
Are yee deaf ?
Mona is, says Sheamie, under his breath.
What?
Nothing, says Sheamie.
So you heard me?
Yes, Daddy.
We run in a group past the other caravans with Terry Wogan on their radios and their doors closed against the rain. I don’t mind running. I’m used of it. But I don’t know how the others will manage.
We turn at the concrete toilet by the gate and run alongside the hedge by the road then turn again towards the cliff. As quickly as the rain started, it turns to a deluge like tiny pebbles spraying our flesh and the wind so strong it’s hard to breathe. We turn at the cliff edge and run towards the caravan. Already Pippa is gasping for air. I can’t do it, Matilda. I swear I can’t.
Keep going, Pippa. Come on, I’ll race you.
She bends over coughing and spluttering and my father is shouting at her from the caravan door to keep going. He’ll tell her when to stop. Pippa gets to the caravan door and drops to her knees in front of my father. She tilts forward as if her head is resting on a glass wall only there’s no wall and she keeps tilting forward till her soft pink cheeks are caked in the muck and her arms are stretched out by her side like a nun lying before the altar begging God’s forgiveness for her sins.